practical life the pleasant fictions of optimism vanished. If thiswere the best of all possible worlds, it nevertheless proved itself avery inconvenient habitation for the ideal sage.

The stoical summary of the whole duty of man, "Live according tonature," would seem to imply that the cosmic process is an exemplarfor human [74] conduct. Ethics would thus become applied NaturalHistory. In fact, a confused employment of the maxim, in this sense,has done immeasurable mischief in later times. It has furnished anaxiomatic foundation for the philosophy of philosophasters and for themoralizing of sentimentalists. But the Stoics were, at bottom, notmerely noble, but sane, men; and if we look closely into what theyreally meant by this ill-used phrase, it will be found to present nojustification for the mischievous conclusions that have been deducedfrom it.

In the language of the Stoa, "Nature" was a word of many meanings.There was the "Nature" of the cosmos and the "Nature" of man. In thelatter, the animal "nature," which man shares with a moiety of theliving part of the cosmos, was distinguished from a higher "nature."Even in this higher nature there were grades of rank. The logicalfaculty is an instrument which may be turned to account for anypurpose. The passions and the emotions are so closely tied to thelower nature that they may be considered to be pathological, ratherthan normal, phenomena. The one supreme, hegemonic, faculty, whichconstitutes the essential "nature" of man, is most nearly representedby that which, in the language of a later philosophy, has been calledthe pure reason. It is this "nature" which holds up the ideal of thesupreme good and demands absolute submission of the will to itsbehests. It is [75] which commands all men to love one another, toreturn good for evil, to regard one another as fellow-citizens of onegreat state. Indeed, seeing that the progress towards perfection of acivilized state, or polity, depends on the obedience of its members tothese commands, the Stoics sometimes termed the pure reason the"political" nature. Unfortunately, the sense of the adjective hasundergone so much modification, that the application of it to thatwhich commands the sacrifice of self to the common good would nowsound almost grotesque. [Note 15]

But what part is played by the theory of evolution in this view ofethics? So far as I can discern, the ethical system of the Stoics,which is essentially intuitive, and reverences the categoricalimperative as strongly as that of any later moralists, might have beenjust what it was if they had held any other theory; whether that ofspecial creation, on the one side, or that of the eternal existence ofthe present order, on the other.[Note 16] To the Stoic, the cosmos hadno importance for the conscience, except in so far as he chose tothink it a pedagogue to virtue. The pertinacious optimism of ourphilosophers hid from them the actual state of the case. It preventedthem from seeing that cosmic nature is no school of virtue, but theheadquarters of the enemy of ethical nature. The logic of facts wasnecessary to convince them [76] that the cosmos works through thelower nature of man, not for righteousness, but against it. And itfinally drove them to confess that the existence of their ideal "wiseman" was incompatible with the nature of things; that even a passableapproximation to that ideal was to be attained only at the cost ofrenunciation of the world and mortification, not merely of the flesh,but of all human affections. The state of perfection was that"apatheia"[Note 17] in which desire, though it may still be felt, ispowerless to move the will, reduced to the sole function of executingthe commands of pure reason. Even this residuum of activity was to beregarded as a temporary loan, as an efflux of the divineworld-pervading spirit, chafing at its imprisonment in theflesh,-until such time as death enabled it to return to its source inthe all-pervading logos.

I find it difficult to discover any very great difference betweenApatheia and Nirvana, except that stoical speculation agrees withpre-Buddhistic philosophy, rather than with the teachings of Gautama,in so far as it postulates a permanent substance equivalent to"Brahma" and "Atman;" and that, in stoical practice, the adoption ofthe life of the mendicant cynic was held to be more a counsel ofperfection than an indispensable condition of the higher life.

Thus the extremes touch. Greek thought and [77] Indian thought set outfrom ground common to both, diverge widely, develop under verydifferent physical and moral conditions, and finally converge topractically the same end.

The Vedas and the Homeric epos set before us a world of rich andvigorous life, full of joyous fighting men

That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine ....

and who were ready to brave the very Gods themselves when their bloodwas up. A few centuries pass away, and under the influence ofcivilization the descendants of these men are "sicklied o'er with thepale cast of thought"--frank pessimists, or, at best, make-believeoptimists. The courage of the warlike stock may be as hardly tried asbefore, perhaps more hardly, but the enemy is self. The hero hasbecome a monk. The man of action is replaced by the quietist, whosehighest aspiration is to be the passive instrument of the divineReason. By the Tiber, as by the Ganges, ethical man admits that thecosmos is too strong for him; and, destroying every bond which tieshim to it by ascetic discipline, he seeks salvation in absoluterenunciation.[Note 18]

Modern thought is making a fresh start from the base whence Indian andGreek philosophy set out; and, the human mind being very much what[78] it was six-and-twenty centuries ago, there is no ground forwonder if it presents indications of a tendency to move along the oldlines to the same results.

We are more than sufficiently familiar with modern pessimism, at leastas a speculation; for I cannot call to mind that any of its presentvotaries have sealed their faith by assuming the rags and the bowl ofthe mendicant Bhikku, or the cloak and the wallet of the Cynic. Theobstacles placed in the way of sturdy vagrancy by an unphilosophicalpolice have, perhaps, proved too formidable for philosophicalconsistency. We also know modern speculative optimism, with itsperfectibility of the species, reign of peace, and lion and lambtransformation scenes; but one does not hear so much of it as one didforty years ago; indeed, I imagine it is to be met with more commonlyat the tables of the healthy and wealthy, than in the congregations ofthe wise. The majority of us, I apprehend, profess neither pessimismnor optimism. We hold that the world is neither so good, nor so bad,as it conceivably might be; and, as most of us have reason, now andagain, to discover that it can be. Those who have failed to experiencethe joys that make life worth living are, probably, in as small aminority as those who have never known the griefs that rob existenceof its savour and turn its richest fruits into mere dust and ashes.

[79] Further, I think I do not err in assuming that, however diversetheir views on philosophical and religious matters, most men areagreed that the proportion of good and evil in life may be verysensibly affected by human action. I never heard anybody doubt thatthe evil may be thus increased, or diminished; and it would seem tofollow that good must be similarly susceptible of addition orsubtraction. Finally, to my knowledge, nobody professes to doubt that,so far forth as we possess a power of bettering things, it is ourparamount duty to use it and to train all our intellect and energy tothis supreme service of our kind.

Hence the pressing interest of the question, to what extent modernprogress in natural knowledge, and, more especially, the generaloutcome of that progress in the doctrine of evolution, is competent tohelp us in the great work of helping one another?

The propounders of what are called the "ethics of evolution," when the"evolution of ethics" would usually better express the object of theirspeculations, adduce a number of more or less interesting facts andmore or less sound arguments in favour of the origin of the moralsentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a processof evolution. I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are onthe right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less beenevolved, there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the [80] oneas the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much asthe philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and theevil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it isincompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good ispreferable to what we call evil than we had before. Some day, I doubtnot, we shall arrive at an understanding of the evolution of theAesthetic faculty; but all the understanding in the world will neitherincrease nor diminish the force of the intuition that this isbeautiful and that is ugly.

There is another fallacy which appears to me to pervade the so-called"ethics of evolution." It is the notion that because, on the whole,animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization bymeans of the struggle for existence and the consequent "survival ofthe fittest;" therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, mustlook to the same process to help them towards perfection. I suspectthat this fallacy has arisen out of the unfortunate ambiguity of thephrase "survival of the fittest." "Fittest" has a connotation of"best;" and about "best" there hangs a moral flavour. In cosmicnature, however, what is "fittest" depends upon the conditions. Longsince [Note 19], I ventured to point out that if our hemisphere wereto cool again, the survival of the fittest might bring about, in thevegetable kingdom, a population of more and more stunted and humbler[81] and humbler organisms, until the "fittest" that survived might benothing but lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as thosewhich give red snow its colour; while, if it became hotter, thepleasant valleys of the Thames and Isis might, be uninhabitable by anyanimated beings save those that flourish in a tropical jungle. They,as the fittest, the best adapted to the changed conditions, wouldsurvive.

Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. As amongother animals, multiplication goes on without cessation, and involvessevere competition for the means of support. The struggle forexistence tends to eliminate those less fitted to adapt themselves tothe circumstances of their existence. The strongest, the mostself-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker. But the influence ofthe cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the morerudimentary its civilization. Social progress means a checking of thecosmic, process at every step and the substitution for it of another,which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not thesurvival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of thewhole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethicallythe best.[Note 20]

As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethicallybest--what we call goodness or virtue--involves a course of conductwhich, in all [82] respects, is opposed to that which leads to successin the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthlessself-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside,or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individualshall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence isdirected, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to thefitting of as many as possible to survive. It repudiates thegladiatorial theory of existence. It demands that each man who entersinto the enjoyment of the advantages of a polity shall be mindful ofhis debt to those who have laboriously constructed it; and shall takeheed that no act of his weakens the fabric in which he has beenpermitted to live. Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end ofcurbing the cosmic process and reminding the individual of his duty tothe community, to the protection and influence of which he owes, ifnot existence itself, at least the life of something better than abrutal savage.

It is from neglect of these plain considerations that the fanaticalindividualism [Note 21] of our time attempts to apply the analogy ofcosmic nature to society. Once more we have a misapplication of thestoical injunction to follow nature; the duties of the individual tothe state are forgotten, and his tendencies to self-assertion aredignified by the name of rights. It is seriously debated whether themembers of a community are justified in using [83] their combinedstrength to constrain one of their number to contribute his share tothe maintenance of it; or even to prevent him from doing his best todestroy it. The struggle for existence which has done such admirablework in cosmic nature, must, it appears, be equally beneficent in theethical sphere. Yet if that which I have insisted upon is true; if thecosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends; if the imitationof it by man is inconsistent with the first principles of ethics; whatbecomes of this surprising theory?

Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of societydepends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in runningaway from it, but in combating it. It may seem an audacious proposalthus to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm and to set man tosubdue nature to his higher ends; but I venture to think that thegreat intellectual difference between the ancient times with which wehave been occupied and our day, lies in the solid foundation we haveacquired for the hope that such an enterprise may meet with a certainmeasure of success.

The history of civilization details the steps by which men havesucceeded in building up an artificial world within the cosmos.Fragile reed as he may be, man, as Pascal says, is a thinking reed:[Note 22] there lies within him a fund of energy operatingintelligently and so far akin to that which pervades the universe,that it is competent [84] to influence and modify the cosmic process.In virtue of his intelligence, the dwarf bends the Titan to his will.In every family, in every polity that has been established, the cosmicprocess in man has been restrained and otherwise modified by law andcustom; in surrounding nature, it has been similarly influenced by theart of the shepherd, the agriculturist, the artisan. As civilizationhas advanced, so has the extent of this interference increased; untilthe organized and highly developed sciences and arts of the presentday have endowed man with a command over the course of non-humannature greater than that once attributed to the magicians. The mostimpressive, I might say startling, of these changes have been broughtabout in the course of the last two centuries; while a rightcomprehension of the process of life and of the means of influencingits manifestations is only just dawning upon us. We do not yet seeour way beyond generalities; and we are befogged by the obtrusion offalse analogies and crude anticipations. But Astronomy, Physics,Chemistry, have all had to pass through similar phases, before theyreached the stage at which their influence became an important factorin human affairs. Physiology, Psychology, Ethics, Political Science,must submit to the same ordeal. Yet it seems to me irrational to doubtthat, at no distant period, they will work as great a revolution inthe sphere of practice.

[85] The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipations.If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet,some time, the summit will be reached and the downward route will becommenced. The most daring imagination will hardly venture upon thesuggestion that the power and the intelligence of man can ever arrestthe procession of the great year.

Moreover, the cosmic nature born with us and, to a large extent,necessary for our maintenance, is the outcome of millions of years ofsevere training, and it would be folly to imagine that a few centurieswill suffice to subdue its masterfulness to purely ethical ends.Ethical nature may count upon having to reckon with a tenacious andpowerful enemy as long as the world lasts. But, on the other hand, Isee no limit to the extent to which intelligence and will, guided bysound principles of investigation, and organized in common effort, maymodify the conditions of existence, for a period longer than that nowcovered by history. And much may be done to change the nature of manhimself. [Note 23] The intelligence which has converted the brother ofthe wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able todo something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilizedmen.

But if we may permit ourselves at larger hope of abatement of theessential evil of the world than was possible to those who, in theinfancy of [86] exact knowledge, faced the problem of existence morethan a score of centuries ago, I deem it an essential condition of therealization of that hope that we should cast aside the notion that theescape from pain and sorrow is the proper object of life.

We have long since emerged from the heroic childhood of our race, whengood and evil could be met with the same "frolic welcome;" theattempts to escape from evil, whether Indian or Greek, have ended inflight from the battle-field; it remains to us to throw aside theyouthful overconfidence and the no less youthful discouragement ofnonage. We are grown men, and must play the man

"...strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,"

cherishing the good that falls in our way, and bearing the evil, inand around us, with stout hearts set on diminishing it. So far, we allmay strive in one faith towards one hope:

"... It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

... but something ere the end, Some work of noble note may yet be done." [Note 24]

[187]

NOTES.

Note 1 (p. 49).

I have been careful to speak of the "appearance" of cyclical evolutionpresented by living things; for, on critical examination, it will befound that the course of vegetable and of animal life is not exactlyrepresented by, the figure of a cycle which returns into itself. Whatactually happens, in all but the lowest organisms, is that one part ofthe growing germ (A) gives rise to tissues and organs; while anotherpart (B) remains in its primitive condition, or is but slightlymodified. The moiety A becomes the body of the adult and, sooner orlater, perishes, while portions of the moiety B are detached and, asoffspring, continue the life of the species. Thus, if we trace backan organism along the direct line of descent from its remotestancestor, B, as a whole, has never suffered death; portions of it,only, have been cast off and died in each individual offspring.

Everybody is familiar with the way in which the "suckers" of astrawberry plant behave. A thin cylinder of living tissue keeps ongrowing at its free end, until it attains a considerable length. At[88] successive intervals, it develops buds which grow into strawberryplants; and these become independent by the death of the parts of thesucker which connect them. The rest of the sucker, however, may go onliving and growing indefinitely, and, circumstances remainingfavourable, there is no obvious reason why it should ever die. Theliving substance B, in a manner, answers to the sucker. If we couldrestore the continuity which was once possessed by the portions of B,contained in all the individuals of a direct line of descent, theywould form a sucker, or stolon, on which these individuals would bestrung, and which would never have wholly died.

A species remains unchanged so long as the potentiality of developmentresident in B remains unaltered; so long, e.g., as the buds of thestrawberry sucker tend to become typical strawberry plants. In the caseof the progressive evolution of a species, the developmentalpotentiality of B becomes of a higher and higher order. Inretrogressive evolution, the contrary would be the case. The phenomenaof atavism seem to show that retrogressive evolution that is, thereturn of a species to one or other of its earlier forms, is apossibility to be reckoned with. The simplification of structure,which is so common in the parasitic members of a group, however, doesnot properly come under this head. The worm-like, limbless Lernoea hasno resemblance to any of the stages of development of the many-limbedactive animals of the group to which it belongs. [89] Note 2 (p. 49).

Heracleitus says,[Greek phrase Potamo gar ouk esti dis embenai to suto]but, to be strictly accurate, the river remains, though the water ofwhich it is composed changes--just as a man retains his identitythough the whole substance of his body is constantly shifting.

Among the many wise and weighty aphorisms of the Roman Bacon, few soundthe realities of life more deeply than "Multa bona nostra nobisnocent." If there is a soul of good in things evil, it is at leastequally true that there is a soul of evil in things good: for things,like men, have "les defauts de leurs qualites." It is one of the lastlessons one learns from experience, but not the least important, thata [90] heavy tax is levied upon all forms of success, and that failureis one of the commonest disguises assumed by blessings.

Note 4 (p. 60).

"There is within the body of every man a soul which, at the death ofthe body, flies away from it like a bird out of a cage, and entersupon a new life ... either in one of the heavens or one of the hellsor on this earth. The only exception is the rare case of a man havingin this life acquired a true knowledge of God. According to thepre-Buddhistic theory, the soul of such a man goes along the path ofthe Gods to God, and, being united with Him, enters upon an immortallife in which his individuality is not extinguished. In the lattertheory his soul is directly absorbed into the Great Soul, is lost init, and has no longer any independent existence. The souls of allother men enter, after the death of the body, upon a new existence inone or other of the many different modes of being. If in heaven orhell, the soul itself becomes a god or demon without entering a body;all superhuman beings, save the great gods, being looked upon as noteternal, but merely temporary creatures. If the soul returns to earthit may or may not enter a new body; and this either of a human being,an animal, a plant, or even a material object. For all these arepossessed of souls, and there is no essential difference between thesesouls and the souls of men--all being alike mere sparks of the GreatSpirit, who is [91] the only real existence." (Rhys Davids, HibbertLectures, 1881, p. 83.)

For what I have said about Indian Philosophy, I am particularlyindebted to the luminous exposition of primitive Buddhism and itsrelations to earlier Hindu thought, which is given by Prof. RhysDavids in his remarkable Hibbert Lectures for 1881, and Buddhism(1890). The only apology I can offer for the freedom with which I haveborrowed from him in these notes, is my desire to leave no doubt as tomy indebtedness. I have also found Dr. Oldenberg's Buddha (Ed. 2,1890) very helpful. The origin of the theory of transmigration statedin the above extract is an unsolved problem. That it differs widelyfrom the Egyptian metempsychosis is clear. In fact, since men usuallypeople the other world with phantoms of this, the Egyptian doctrinewould seem to presuppose the Indian as a more archaic belief.

Prof. Rhys Davids has fully insisted upon the ethical importance ofthe transmigration theory. "One of the latest speculations now beingput forward among ourselves would seek to explain each man'scharacter, and even his outward condition in life, by the character heinherited from his ancestors, a character gradually formed during apractically endless series of past existences, modified only by theconditions into which he was born, those very conditions being also,in like manner, the last result of a practically endless series ofpast causes. Gotama's; speculation might be stated in the same words.But it attempted also to explain, in a way different from [92] thatwhich would be adopted by the exponents of the modern theory, thatstrange problem which it is also the motive of the wonderful drama ofthe book of Job to explain--the fact that the actual distribution hereof good fortune, or misery, is entirely independent of the moralqualities which men call good or bad. We cannot wonder that a teacher,whose whole system was so essentially an ethical reformation, shouldhave felt it incumbent upon him to seek an explanation of thisapparent injustice. And all the more so, since the belief he hadinherited, the theory of the transmigration of souls, had provided asolution perfectly sufficient to any one who could accept thatbelief." (Hibbert Lectures, p. 93.) I should venture to suggest thesubstitution of "largely" for "entirely" in the foregoing passage.Whether a ship makes a good or a bad voyage is largely independent ofthe conduct of the captain, but it is largely affected by thatconduct. Though powerless before a hurricane he may weather a badgale.

Note 5 (P. 61).

The outward condition of the soul is, in each new birth, determined byits actions in a previous birth; but by each action in succession, andnot by the balance struck after the evil has been reckoned off againstthe good. A good man who has once uttered a slander may spend ahundred thousand years as a god, in consequence of his goodness, andwhen the power of his good actions is exhausted, may be born [93] as adumb man on account of his transgression; and a robber who has oncedone an act of mercy, may come to life in a king's body as the resultof his virtue, and then suffer torments for ages in hell or as a ghostwithout a body, or be re-born many times as a slave or an outcast, inconsequence of his evil life.

"There is no escape, according to this theory, from the result of anyact; though it is only the consequences of its own acts that each soulhas to endure. The force has been set in motion by itself and cannever stop; and its effect can never be foretold. If evil, it cannever be modified or prevented, for it depends on a cause alreadycompleted, that is now for ever beyond the soul's control. There iseven no continuing consciousness, no memory of the past that couldguide the soul to any knowledge of its fate. The only advantage opento it is to add in this life to the sum of its good actions, that itmay bear fruit with the rest. And even this can only happen in somefuture life under essentially them same conditions as the present one:subject, like the present one, to old age, decay, and death; andaffording opportunity, like the present one, for the commission oferrors, ignorances, or sins, which in their turn must inevitablyproduce their due effect of sickness, disability, or woe. Thus is thesoul tossed about from life to life, from billow to billow in thegreat ocean of transmigration. And there is no escape save for thevery few, who, during their birth as men, attain to a right knowledgeof the Great Spirit: and thus enter into immortality, or, as the later[94] philosophers taught, are absorbed into the Divine Essence." (RhysDavids, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 85, 86.)

The state after death thus imagined by the Hindu philosophers has acertain analogy to the purgatory of the Roman Church; except thatescape from it is dependent, not on a divine decree modified, it maybe, by sacerdotal or saintly intercession, but by the acts of theindividual himself; and that while ultimate emergence into heavenlybliss of the good, or well-prayed for, Catholic is professedlyassured, the chances in favour of the attainment of absorption, or ofNirvana, by any individual Hindu are extremely small.

Note 6 (P. 62).

"That part of the then prevalent transmigration theory which could notbe proved false seemed to meet a deeply felt necessity, seemed tosupply a moral cause which would explain the unequal distribution hereof happiness or woe, so utterly inconsistent with the presentcharacters of men." Gautama "still therefore talked of men's previousexistence, but by no means in the way that he is generally representedto have done." What he taught was "the transmigration of character."He held that after the death of any being, whether human or not, theresurvived nothing at all but that being's "Karma," the result, that is,of its mental and bodily actions. Every individual, whether human ordivine, was the last inheritor and the last result of the Karma of along series of past individuals--"a series [95] so long that itsbeginning is beyond the reach of calculation, and its end will becoincident with the destruction of the world." (Rhys Davids, HibbertLectures, p. 92.)

In the theory of evolution, the tendency of a germ to develop accordingto a certain specific type, e.g. of the kidney bean seed to grow intoa plant having all the characters of Phaseolus vulgaris, is its"Karma." It is the "last inheritor and the last result" of all theconditions that have affected a line of ancestry which goes back formany millions of years to the time when life first appeared on theearth. The moiety B of the substance of the bean plant (see Note 1) isthe last link in a once continuous chain extending from the primitiveliving substance: and the characters of the successive species towhich it has given rise are the manifestations of its graduallymodified Karma. As Prof. Rhys Davids aptly says, the snowdrop "is asnowdrop and not an oak, and just that kind of snowdrop, because it isthe outcome of the Karma of an endless series of past existences."(Hibbert Lectures, p. 114.)

Note 7 (p. 64).

"It is interesting to notice that the very point which is the weaknessof the theory--the supposed concentration of the effect of the Karmain one new being--presented itself to the early Buddhists themselvesas a difficulty. They avoided it, partly by explaining that it was aparticular thirst in the creature dying (a craving, Tanha, which playsother [96] wise a great part in the Buddhist theory) which actuallycaused the birth of the new individual who was to inherit the Karma ofthe former one. But, how this too place, how the craving desireproduced this effect, was acknowledged to be a mystery patent only toa Buddha." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, P. 95.)

"The distinguishing characteristic of Buddhism was that it started anew line, that it looked upon the deepest questions men have to solvefrom an entirely different standpoint. It swept away from the field ofits vision the whole of the great soul theory which had hitherto socompletely filled and dominated the minds of the superstitious and thethoughtful alike. For the first time in the history of the world, itproclaimed a salvation which each man could gain for himself and byhimself, in this world, during this life, without any the leastreference to God, or to Gods, either great or small. Like theUpanishads, it placed the first importance on knowledge; but it was nolonger a knowledge of God, it was a clear perception of the realnature, as [97] they supposed it to be, of men and things. And it addedto the necessity of knowledge, the necessity of purity, of courtesy,of uprightness, of peace and of a universal love far reaching, growngreat and beyond measure." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, p. 29.)

The contemporary Greek philosophy takes an analogous direction.According to Heracleitus, the universe was made neither by Gods normen; but, from all eternity, has been, and to all eternity, will be,immortal fire, glowing and fading in due measure. (Mullach, HeraclitiFragmenta, 27.) And the part assigned by his successors, the Stoics,to the knowledge and the volition of the "wise man" made theirDivinity (for logical thinkers) a subject for compliments, rather thana power to be reckoned with. In Hindu speculation the "Arahat," stillmore the "Buddha," becomes the superior of Brahma; the stoical "wiseman" is, at least, the equal of Zeus.

Berkeley affirms over and over again that no idea can be formed of asoul or spirit--"If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is heredelivered, let him but reflect and try if he can form any idea ofpower or active being; and whether he hath ideas of two principalpowers marked by the names of will and understanding distinct fromeach other, as well as from a third idea of substance or being ingeneral, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subjectof the aforesaid power, which is signified by the name soul or spirit.This is what some hold but, so far as I can see, the words will, soul,spirit, do not stand for different ideas or, in truth, for any idea atall, but for something which is very different from ideas, and which,being an agent, cannot be like unto or represented by Any ideawhatever [though it must be owned at the same time, that we have somenotion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind, such aswilling, loving, hating, inasmuch as we know or understand the meaningof these words". (The Principles of Human Knowledge, lxxvi. See alsosections lxxxix., cxxxv., cxlv.)

It is open to discussion, I think, whether it is possible to have"some notion" of that of which we can form no "idea."

Berkeley attaches several predicates to the "perceiving active beingmind, spirit, soul or myself" (Parts I. II.) It is said, for example,to be "indivisible, incorporeal, unextended, and incorruptible." Thepredicate indivisible, though negative in form, has highly positiveconsequences. For, if "perceiving active being" is strictlyindivisible, man's soul must be one with the Divine spirit: which isgood Hindu or Stoical doctrine, but hardly orthodox Christianphilosophy. If, on the other hand, the "substance" of activeperceiving "being" is actually divided into the one Divine andinnumerable human entities, how can the predicate "indivisible" berigorously applicable to it?

Taking the words cited, as they stand, the amount to the denial of thepossibility of any knowledge of substance. "Matter" having beenresolved into mere affections of "spirit", "spirit" melts away into anadmittedly inconceivable and unknowable [99] hypostasis of thought andpower--consequently the existence of anything in the universe beyond aflow of phenomena is a purely hypothetical assumption. Indeed apyrrhonist might raise the objection that if "esse" is "percipi"spirit itself can have no existence except as a perception,hypostatized into a "self," or as a perception of some other spirit.In the former case, objective reality vanishes; in the latter, therewould seem to be the need of an infinite series of spirits eachperceiving the others.

It is curious to observe how very closely the phraseology of Berkeleysometimes approaches that of the Stoics: thus (cxlviii.) "It seems tobe a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they cannot see God.. . But, alas, we need only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord ofall things with a more full and clear view, than we do any of ourfellow-creatures . . . we do at all times and in all places perceivemanifest tokens of the Divinity: everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of the power of God" .. . cxlix. "It is therefore plain, that nothing can be more evident toany one that is capable of the least reflection, than the existence ofGod, or a spirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing inthem all that variety of ideas or sensations which continually affectus, on whom we have an absolute and entire dependence, in short, inwhom we live and move and have our being." cl. "[But you will say hathNature no share in the production of natural things, and must they allbe ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? ... if byNature is [100] meant some being distinct from God, as well as fromthe laws of nature and things perceived by sense, I must confess thatword is to me an empty sound, without any intelligible meaning annexedto it.] Nature in this acceptation is a vain Chimaera introduced bythose heathens, who had not just notions of the omnipresence andinfinite perfection of God."

There is yet another direction in which Berkeley's philosophy, I willnot say agrees with Gautama's, but at any rate helps to make afundamental dogma of Buddhism intelligible.

"I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shiftthe scene as often as I think fit. It is no more than willing, andstraightway this or that idea arises in my fancy: and by the samepower [101] it is obliterated, and makes way for another. This makingand unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active.This much is certain and grounded on experience. . ." (Principles,xxviii.)

A good many of us, I fancy, have reason to think that experience tellsthem very much the contrary; and are painfully familiar with theobsession of the mind by ideas which cannot be obliterated by anyeffort of the will and steadily refuse to make way for others. Butwhat I desire to point out is that if Gautama was equally confidentthat he could "make and unmake" ideas--then, since he had resolvedself into a group of ideal phantoms--the possibility of abolishingself by volition naturally followed.

Note 9 (P. 68).

According to Buddhism, the relation of one life to the next is merelythat borne by the flame of one lamp to the flame of another lamp whichis set alight by it. To the "Arahat" or adept "no outward form, nocompound thing, no creature, no creator, no existence of any kind,must appear to be other than a temporary collocation of its componentparts, fated inevitably to be dissolved."--(Rhys Davids, HibbertLectures, p. 211.)

The self is nothing but a group of phenomena held together by thedesire of life; when that desire shall have ceased, "the Karma of thatparticular chain of lives will cease to influence any longer anydistinct individual, and there will be no more birth; [102] for birth,decay, and death, grief, lamentation, and despair will have come, sofar as regards that chain of lives, for ever to an end."

The state of mind of the Arahat in which the desire of life has ceasedis Nirvana. Dr. Oldenberg has very acutely and patiently consideredthe various interpretations which have been attached to "Nirvana" inthe work to which I have referred (pp. 285 et seq.). The result of hisand other discussions of the question may I think be briefly statedthus:

1. Logical deduction from the predicates attached to the term"Nirvana" strips it of all reality, conceivability, or perceivability,whether by Gods or men. For all practical purposes, therefore, itcomes to exactly the same thing as annihilation.

2. But it is not annihilation in the ordinary sense, inasmuch as itcould take place in the living Arahat or Buddha.

3. And, since, for the faithful Buddhist, that which was abolished inthe Arahat was the possibility of further pain, sorrow, or sin; andthat which was attained was perfect peace; his mind directed itselfexclusively to this joyful consummation, and personified the negationof all conceivable existence and of all pain into a positive bliss.This was all the more easy, as Gautama refused to give any dogmaticdefinition of Nirvana. There is something analogous in the way inwhich people commonly talk of the "happy release" of a man who hasbeen long suffering from mortal disease. According to their own views,it must always be extremely doubtful whether the man will be anyhappier after the "release" [103] than before. But they do not chooseto look at the matter in this light.

The popular notion that, with practical, if not metaphysical,annihilation in view, Buddhism must needs be a sad and gloomy faithseems to be inconsistent with fact; on the contrary, the prospect ofNirvana fills the true believer, not merely with cheerfulness, butwith an ecstatic desire to reach it.

Note 10 (P. 68.)

The influence of the picture of the personal qualities of Gautama,afforded by the legendary anecdotes which rapidly grew into abiography of the Buddha; and by the birth stories, which coalescedwith the current folk-lore, and were intelligible to all the world,doubtless played a great part. Further, although Gautama appears notto have meddled with the caste system, he refused to recognize anydistinction, save that of perfection in the way of salvation, amonghis followers; and by such teaching, no less than by the inculcationof love and benevolence to all sentient beings, he practicallylevelled every social, political, and racial barrier. A thirdimportant condition was the organization of the Buddhists intomonastic communities for the stricter professors, while the laity werepermitted a wide indulgence in practice and were allowed to hope foraccommodation in some of the temporary abodes of bliss. With a fewhundred thousand years of immediate paradise in sight, the average mancould be content to shut his eyes to what might follow.

[104]

Note 11 (P. 69).

In ancient times it was the fashion, even among the Greeks themselves,to derive all Greek wisdom from Eastern sources; not long ago it wasas generally denied that Greek philosophy had any connection, withOriental speculation; it seems probable, however, that the truth liesbetween these extremes.

The Ionian intellectual movement does not stand alone. It is only oneof several sporadic indications of the working of some powerful mentalferment over the whole of the area comprised between the Aegean andNorthern Hindostan during the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuriesbefore our era. In these three hundred years, prophetism attained itsapogee among the Semites of Palestine; Zoroasterism grew and becamethe creed of a conquering race, the Iranic Aryans; Buddhism rose andspread with marvellous rapidity among the Aryans of Hindostan; whilescientific naturalism took its rise among the Aryans of Ionia. Itwould be difficult to find another three centuries which have givenbirth to four events of equal importance. All the principal existingreligions of mankind have grown out of the first three: while thefourth is the little spring, now swollen into the great stream ofpositive science. So far as physical possibilities go, the prophetJeremiah and the oldest Ionian philosopher might have met andconversed. If they had done so, they would probably have disagreed agood deal; and it is interesting to reflect that their discussionsmight have [105] embraced Questions which, at the present day, arestill hotly controverted.

The old Ionian philosophy, then, seems to be only one of many resultsof a stirring of the moral and intellectual life of the Aryan and theSemitic populations of Western Asia. The conditions of this generalawakening were doubtless manifold; but there is one which modernresearch has brought into great prominence. This is the existence ofextremely ancient and highly advanced societies in the valleys of theEuphrates and of the Nile.

It is now known that, more than a thousand--perhaps more than twothousand--years before the sixth century B.C., civilization hadattained a relatively high pitch among the Babylonians and theEgyptians. Not only had painting, sculpture, architecture, and theindustrial arts reached a remarkable development; but in Chaldaea, atany rate, a vast amount of knowledge had been accumulated andmethodized, in the departments of grammar, mathematics, astronomy, andnatural history. Where such traces of the scientific spirit arevisible, naturalistic speculation is rarely far off, though, so far asI know, no remains of an Accacian, or Egyptian, philosophy, properlyso called, have yet been recovered.

Geographically, Chaldaea occupied a central position among the oldestseats of civilization. Commerce, largely aided by the intervention ofthose colossal pedlars, the Phoenicians, had brought Chaldaea intoconnection with all of them, for a thousand years before the epoch atpresent under consideration. And in the ninth, eighth and seventh[106] centuries, the Assyrian, the depositary of Chaldaeancivilization, as the Macedonian and the Roman, at a later date, werethe depositories of Greek culture, had added irresistible force to theother agencies for the wide distribution of Chaldaean literature, art,and science.

I confess that I find it difficult to imagine that the Greekimmigrant--who stood in somewhat the same relation to the Babyloniansand the Egyptians as the later Germanic barbarians to the Romans ofthe Empire--should not have been immensely influenced by the new lifewith which they became acquainted. But there is abundant directevidence of the magnitude of this influence in certain spheres. Isuppose it is not doubted that the Greek went to school with theOriental for his primary instruction in reading, writing, andarithmetic; and that Semitic theology supplied him with some of hismythological lore. Nor does there now seem to be any question aboutthe large indebtedness of Greek art to that of Chaldaea and that ofEgypt.

But the manner of that indebtedness is very instructive. The obligationis clear, but its limits are no less definite. Nothing betterexemplifies the indomitable originality of the Greeks than therelations of their art to that of the Orientals. Far from beingsubdued into mere imitators by the technical excellence of theirteachers, they lost no time in bettering the instruction theyreceived, using their models as mere stepping stones on the way tothose unsurpassed and unsurpassable achievements which are all theirown. The shibboleth of Art is [107] the human figure. The ancientChaldaeans and Egyptians, like the modern Japanese, did wonders in therepresentation of birds and quadrupeds; they even attained tosomething more than respectability in human portraiture. But theirutmost efforts never brought them within range of the best Greekembodiments of the grace of womanhood, or of the severer beauty ofmanhood.

It is worth while to consider the probable effect upon the acute andcritical Greek mind of the conflict of ideas, social, political, andtheological, which arose out of the conditions of life in the Asiaticcolonies. The Ionian polities had passed through the whole gamut ofsocial and political changes, from patriarchal and occasionallyoppressive kingship to rowdy and still more burdensome mobship--nodoubt with infinitely eloquent and copious argumentation, on bothsides, at every stage of their progress towards that arbitrament offorce which settles most political questions. The marvellousspeculative faculty, latent in the Ionian, had come in contact withMesopotamian, Egyptian, Phoenician theologies and cosmogonies; withthe illuminati of Orphism and the fanatics and dreamers of theMysteries; possibly with Buddhism and Zoroasterism; possibly even withJudaism. And it has been observed that the mutual contradictions ofantagonistic supernaturalisms are apt to play a large part among thegenerative agencies of naturalism.

Thus, various external influences may have contributed to the rise ofphilosophy among the Ionian Greeks of the sixth century. But theassimilative [108] capacity of the Greek mind--its power ofHellenizing whatever it touched--has here worked so effectually, that,so far as I can learn, no indubitable traces of such extraneouscontributions are now allowed to exist by the most authoritativehistorians of Philosophy. Nevertheless, I think it must be admittedthat the coincidences between the Heracleito-stoical doctrines andthose of the older Hindu philosophy are extremely remarkable. In both,the cosmos pursues an eternal succession of cyclical changes. Thegreat year, answering to the Kalpa, covers an entire cycle from theorigin of the universe as a fluid to its dissolution in fire--"Humorinitium, ignis exitus mundi," as Seneca has it. In both systems, thereis immanent in the cosmos a source of energy, Brahma, or the Logos,which works according to fixed laws. The individual soul is an effluxof this world-spirit, and returns to it. Perfection is attainable onlyby individual effort, through ascetic discipline, and is rather astate of painlessness than of happiness; if indeed it can be said tobe a state of anything, save the negation of perturbing emotion. Thehatchment motto "In Coelo Quies" would serve both Hindu and Stoic; andabsolute quiet is not easily distinguishable from annihilation.

Zoroasterism, which, geographically, occupies a position intermediatebetween Hellenism and Hinduism, agrees with the latter in recognizingthe essential evil of the cosmos; but differs from both in itsintensely anthropomorphic personification of the two antagonisticprinciples, to the one of which it ascribes all the good; and, to theother, all the evil.

[109] In fact, it assumes the existence of two worlds, one good and onebad; the latter created by the evil power for the purpose of damagingthe former. The existing cosmos is a mere mixture of the two, and the"last judgment" is a root-and-branch extirpation of the work ofAhriman.

Note 12 (p. 69).

There is no snare in which the feet of a modern student of ancient loreare more easily entangled, than that which is spread by the similarityof the language of antiquity to modern modes of expression. I do notpresume to interpret the obscurest of Greek philosophers; all I wishis to point out, that his words, in the sense accepted by competentinterpreters, fit modern ideas singularly well.

So far as the general theory of evolution goes there is no difficulty.The aphorism about the river; the figure of the child playing on theshore; the kingship and fatherhood of strife, seem decisive. The[Greek phrase osod ano kato mie] expresses, with singular aptness, thecyclical aspect of the one process of organic evolution in individualplants and animals: yet it may be a question whether the Heracleiteanstrife included any distinct conception of the struggle for existence.Again, it is tempting to compare the part played by the Heracleitean"fire" with that ascribed by the moderns to heat, or rather to thatcause of motion of which heat is one expression; and a littleingenuity might find a foreshadowing of the doctrine of theconservation of energy, in the saying [110] that all the things arechanged into fire and fire into all things, as gold into goods andgoods into gold.

Note 13 (p. 71).

Pope's lines in the Essay on Man(Ep. i. 267-8),

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul,"

So far as the testimony for the universality of what ordinary peoplecall "evil" goes, there is nothing better than the writings of theStoics themselves. They might serve, as a storehouse for the epigramsof the ultra-pessimists. Heracleitus (circa 500 B.C.) says just ashard things about ordinary humanity as his disciples centuries later;and there really seems no need to seek for the causes of this darkview of life in the circumstances of the time of Alexander'ssuccessors or of the early Emperors of Rome. To the man with anethical ideal, the world, including himself, will always seem full ofevil.

Note 14 (P. 73).

I use the well-known phrase, but decline responsibility for the libelupon Epicurus, whose doctrines [111] were far less compatible withexistence in a style than those of the Cynics. If it were steadilyborne in mind that the conception of the "flesh" as the source ofevil, and the great saying "Initium est salutis notitia peccati," arethe property of Epicurus, fewer illusions about Epicureanism wouldpass muster for accepted truth.

Note 15 (P. 75).

The Stoics said that man was a [Greek phrase zoon logikon politikonphilallelon], or a rational, a political, and an altruistic orphilanthropic animal. In their view, his higher nature tended todevelop in these three directions, as a plant tends to grow up intoits typical form. Since, without the introduction of any considerationof pleasure or pain, whatever thwarted the realization of its type bythe plant might be said to be bad, and whatever helped it good; sovirtue, in the Stoical sense, as the conduct which tended to theattainment of the rational, political, and philanthropic ideal, wasgood in itself, and irrespectively of its emotional concomitants.

The importance of the physical doctrine of the Stoics lies in itsclear recognition of the universality [112] of the law of causation,with its corollary, the order of nature: the exact form of that orderis an altogether secondary consideration.

Many ingenious persons now appear to consider that the incompatibilityof pantheism, of materialism, and of any doubt about the immortalityoxf the soul, with religion and morality, is to be held as anaxiomatic truth. I confess that I have a certain difficulty inaccepting this dogma. For the Stoics were notoriously materialists andpantheists of the most extreme character; and while no strict Stoicbelieved in the eternal duration of the individual soul, some evendenied its persistence after death. Yet it is equally certain that ofall gentile philosophies, Stoicism exhibits the highest ethicaldevelopment, is animated by the most religious spirit, and has exertedthe profoundest influence upon the moral and religious development notmerely of the best men among the Romans, but among the moderns down toour own day.

Seneca was claimed as a Christian and placed among the saints by thefathers of the early Christian Church; and the genuineness of acorrespondence between him and the apostle Paul has been hotlymaintained in our own time, by orthodox writers. That the letters, aswe possess them, are worthless forgeries is obvious; and writers aswide apart as Baur and Lightfoot agree that the whole story is devoidof foundation.

The dissertation of the late Bishop of Durham (Epistle to thePhilippians) is particularly worthy of study, apart from thisquestion, on account of [113] evidence which it supplies of thenumerous similarities of thought between Seneca and the writer of thePauline epistles. When it is remembered that the writer of the Actsputs a quotation from Aratus, or Cleanthes, into the mouth of theapostle; and that Tarsus was a great seat of philosophical andespecially stoical learning (Chrysippus himself was a native of theadjacent town of Soli), there is no difficulty in understanding theorigin of these resemblances. See, on this subject, Sir AlexanderGrant's dissertation in his edition of The Ethics of Aristotle (wherethere is an interesting reference to the stoical character of BishopButler's ethics), the concluding pages of Dr. Weygoldt's instructivelittle work Die Philosophie der Stoa, and Aubertin's Seneque et SaintPaul.

It is surprising that a writer of Dr. Lightfoot's stamp should speakof Stoicism as a philosophy of "despair." Surely, rather, it was aphilosophy of men who, having cast off all illusions, and thechildishness of despair among them, were minded to endure in patiencewhatever conditions the cosmic process might create, so long as thoseconditions were compatible with the progress towards virtue, whichalone, for them, conferred a worthy object on existence. There is nonote of despair in the stoical declaration that the perfected "wiseman" is the equal of Zeus in everything but the duration of hisexistence. And, in my judgment, there is as little pride about it,often as it serves for the text of discourses on stoical arrogance.Grant the stoical postulate that there is no good except virtue; grantthat [114] the perfected wise man is altogether virtuous, inconsequence of being guided in all things by the reason, which is aneffluence of Zeus, and there seems no escape from the stoicalconclusion.

Note 17 (p. 76).

Our "Apathy" carries such a different set of connotations from itsGreek original that I have ventured on using the latter as a technicalterm.

Note 18 (P. 77).

Many of the stoical philosophers recommended their disciples to takean active share in public affairs; and in the Roman world, for severalcenturies, the best public men were strongly inclined to Stoicism.Nevertheless, the logical tendency of Stoicism seems to me to befulfilled only in such men as Diogenes and Epictetus.

Of course, strictly speaking, social life, and the ethical process invirtue of which it advances towards perfection, Are part and parcel ofthe general process of evolution, just as the gregarious habit of in[115] numerable plants and animals, which has been of immenseadvantage to them, is so. A hive of bees is an organic polity, asociety in which the part played by each member is determined byorganic necessities. Queens, workers, and drones are, so to speak,castes, divided from one another by marked physical barriers. Amongbirds and mammals, societies are formed, of which the bond in manycases seems to be purely psychological; that is to say, it appears todepend upon the liking of the individuals for one another's company.The tendency of individuals to over self-assertion is kept down byfighting. Even in these rudimentary forms of society, love and fearcome into play, and enforce a greater or less renunciation ofself-will. To this extent the general cosmic process begins to bechecked by a rudimentary ethical process, which is, strictly speaking,part of the former, just as the "governor" in a steam-engine is partof the mechanism of the engine.

Note 21 (p. 82).

See "Government: Anarchy or Regimentation," Collected Essays, vol. i.pp. 413-418. It is this form of political philosophy to which Iconceive the epithet of "reasoned savagery" to be strictlyapplicable.[1894.]

The use of the word "Nature" here may be criticised. Yet themanifestation of the natural tendencies of men is so profoundlymodified by training that it is hardly too strong. Consider thesuppression of the sexual instinct between near relations.

Note 24 (p. 86).

A great proportion of poetry is addressed by the young to the young;only the great masters of the art are capable of divining, or think itworth while to enter into, the feelings of retrospective age. The twogreat poets whom we have so lately lost, Tennyson and Browning, havedone this, each in his own inimitable way; the one in the Ulysses,from which I have borrowed; the other in that wonderful fragment"Childe Roland to the dark Tower came."

[147]

(Note: Section III came from a different source than theother sections and thus does not have page numbers.)

Novelties are enticing to most people; to us they are simply annoying.We cling to a long-accepted theory, just as we cling to an old suit ofclothes. A new theory, like a new pair of breeches (the Atlantic stillaffects the older type of nether garment), is sure to have hard-fittingplaces; or, even when no particular fault can be found with thearticle, it oppresses with a sense of general discomfort. New notionsand new styles worry us, till we get well used to them, which is onlyby slow degrees.

Wherefore, in Galileos time, we might have helped to proscribe, or toburn--had he been stubborn enough to warrant cremation--even the greatpioneer of inductive research; although, when we had fairly recoveredour composure, and bad leisurely excogitated the matter, we might havecome to conclude that the new doctrine was better than the old one,after all, at least for those who had nothing to unlearn.

Such being our habitual state of mind, it may well be believed that theperusal of the new book "On the Origin of Species by Means of NaturalSelection" left an uncomfortable impression, in spite of its plausibleand winning ways. We were not wholly unprepared for it, as many of ourcontemporaries seem to have been. The scientific reading in which weindulge as a relaxation from severer studies had raised dimforebodings. Investigations about the succession of species in time,and their actual geographical distribution over the earths surface,were leading up from all sides and in various ways to the question oftheir origin. Now and then we encountered a sentence, like Prof. Owens"axiom of the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of livingthings," which haunted us like an apparition. For, dim as ourconception must needs be as to what such oracular and grandiloquentphrases might really mean, we felt confident that they presaged no goodto old beliefs. Foreseeing, yet deprecating, the coming time oftrouble, we still hoped that, with some repairs and makeshifts, the oldviews might last out our days. Apres nous le deluge. Still, not to lagbehind the rest of the world, we read the book in which the new theoryis promulgated. We took it up, like our neighbors, and, as was natural,in a somewhat captious frame of mind.

Well, we found no cause of quarrel with the first chapter. Here theauthor takes us directly to the barn-yard and the kitchen-garden. Likean honorable rural member of our General Court, who sat silent until,near the close of a long session, a bill requiring all swine at largeto wear pokes was introduced, when he claimed the privilege ofaddressing the house, on the proper ground that he had been "brought upamong the pigs, and knew all about them"--so we were brought up amongcows and cabbages; and the lowing of cattle, the cackle of hens, andthe cooing of pigeons, were sounds native and pleasant to our ears. So"Variation under Domestication" dealt with familiar subjects in anatural way, and gently introduced "Variation under Nature," whichseemed likely enough. Then follows "Struggle for Existence"--aprinciple which we experimentally know to be true and cogent--bringingthe comfortable assurance, that man, even upon Leviathan Hobbess theoryof society, is no worse than the rest of creation, since all Nature isat war, one species with another, and the nearer kindred the moreinternecine--bringing in thousandfold confirmation and extension of theMalthusian doctrine that population tends far to outrun means ofsubsistence throughout the animal and vegetable world, and has to bekept down by sharp preventive checks; so that not more than one of ahundred or a thousand of the individuals whose existence is sowonderfully and so sedulously provided for ever comes to anything,under ordinary circumstances; so the lucky and the strong must prevail,and the weaker and ill-favored must perish; and then follows, asnaturally as one sheep follows another, the chapter on "NaturalSelection," Darwins cheval de bataille, which is very much theNapoleonic doctrine that Providence favors the strongestbattalions--that, since many more individuals are born than canpossibly survive, those individuals and those variations which possessany advantage, however slight, over the rest, are in the long-run sureto survive, to propagate, and to occupy the limited field, to theexclusion or destruction of the weaker brethren. All this we pondered,and could not much object to. In fact, we began to contract a likingfor a system which at the outset illustrates the advantages of goodbreeding, and which makes the most "of every creatures best."

Could we "let by-gones be by-gones," and, beginning now, go onimproving and diversifying for the future by natural selection, couldwe even take up the theory at the introduction of the actuallyexisting species, we should be well content; and so, perhaps, wouldmost naturalists be. It is by no means difficult to believe thatvarieties are incipient or possible species, when we see what troublenaturalists, especially botanists, have to distinguish betweenthem--one regarding as a true species what another regards as avariety; when the progress of knowledge continually increases, ratherthan diminishes, the number of doubtful instances; and when there isless agreement than ever among naturalists as to what is the basis inNature upon which our idea of species reposes, or how the word is to bedefined. Indeed, when we consider the endless disputes of naturalistsand ethnologists over the human races, as to whether they belong to onespecies or to more, and, if to more, whether to three, or five, orfifty, we can hardly help fancying that both may be right--or rather,that the uni-humanitarians would have been right many thousand yearsago, and the multi-humanitarians will be several thousand years later;while at present the safe thing to say is, that probably there is sometruth on both sides.

"Natural selection," Darwin remarks, "leads to divergence of character;for the more living beings can be supported on the same area, the morethey diverge in structure, habits, and constitution" (a principlewhich, by-the-way, is paralleled and illustrated by the diversificationof human labor); and also leads to much extinction of intermediate orunimproved forms. Now, though this divergence may "steadily tend toincrease," yet this is evidently a slow process in Nature, and liableto much counteraction wherever man does not interpose, and so notlikely to work much harm for the future. And if natural selection, withartificial to help it, will produce better animals and better men thanthe present, and fit them better to the conditions of existence, why,let it work, say we, to the top of its bent There is still room enoughfor improvement. Only let us hope that it always works for good: ifnot, the divergent lines on Darwin's lithographic diagram of"Transmutation made Easy," ominously show what small deviations fromthe straight path may come to in the end.

The prospect of the future, accordingly, is on the whole pleasant andencouraging. It is only the backward glance, the gaze up the long vistaof the past, that reveals anything alarming. Here the lines converge asthey recede into the geological ages, and point to conclusions which,upon the theory, are inevitable, but hardly welcome. The very firststep backward makes the negro and the Hottentot ourblood-relations--not that reason or Scripture objects to that, thoughpride may. The next suggests a closer association of our ancestors ofthe olden time with "our poor relations" of the quadrumanous familythan we like to acknowledge. Fortunately, however--even if we mustaccount for him scientifically --man with his two feet stands upon afoundation of his own. Intermediate links between the Bimana and theQuadrumana are lacking altogether; so that, put the genealogy of thebrutes upon what footing you will, the four-handed races will not servefor our forerunners--at least, not until some monkey, live or fossil,is producible with great-toes, instead of thumbs, upon his netherextremities; or until some lucky geologist turns up the bones of hisancestor and prototype in France or England, who was so busy "nappingthe chuckie-stanes" and chipping out flint knives and arrow-heads inthe time of the drift, very many ages ago--before the British Channelexisted, says Lyell [III-1]--and until these men of the olden time areshown to have worn their great-toes in the divergent and thumblikefashion. That would be evidence indeed: but, until some testimony ofthe sort is produced, we must needs believe in the separate and specialcreation of man, however it may have been with the lower animals andwith plants.

No doubt, the full development and symmetry of Darwin's hypothesisstrongly suggest the evolution of the human no less than the loweranimal races out of some simple primordial animal--that all are equally"lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before thefirst bed of the Silurian system was deposited." But, as the authorspeaks disrespectfully of spontaneous generation, and accepts asupernatural beginning of life on earth, in some form or forms of beingwhich included potentially all that have since existed and are yet tobe, he is thereby not warranted to extend his inferences beyond theevidence or the fair probability. There seems as great likelihood thatone special origination should be followed by another upon fittingoccasion (such as the introduction of man), as that one form should betransmuted into another upon fitting occasion, as, for instance, in thesuccession of species which differ from each other only in somedetails. To compare small things with great in a homely illustration:man alters from time to time his instruments or machines, as newcircumstances or conditions may require and his wit suggest. Minoralterations and improvements he adds to the machine he possesses; headapts a new rig or a new rudder to an old boat: this answers toVariation. "Like begets like," being the great rule in Nature, if boatscould engender, the variations would doubtless be propagated, likethose of domestic cattle. In course of time the old ones would be wornout or wrecked; the best sorts would be chosen for each particular use,and further improved upon; and so the primordial boat be developed intothe scow, the skiff, the sloop, and other species of water-craft--thevery diversification, as well as the successive improvements, entailingthe disappearance of intermediate forms, less adapted to any oneparticular purpose; wherefore these go slowly out of use, and becomeextinct species: this is Natural Selection. Now, let a great andimportant advance be made, like that of steam navigation: here, thoughthe engine might be added to the old vessel, yet the wiser andtherefore the actual way is to make a new vessel on a modified plan:this may answer to Specific Creation. Anyhow, the one does notnecessarily exclude the other. Variation and natural selection mayplay their part, and so may specific creation also. Why not?

This leads us to ask for the reasons which call for this new theory oftransmutation. The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity,beyond the bounds of proof, though within those of conjecture or ofanalogical inference. Why not hold fast to the customary view, that allspecies were directly, instead of indirectly, created after theirrespective kinds, as we now behold them--and that in a manner which,passing our comprehension, we intuitively refer to the supernatural?Why this continual striving after "the unattained and dim?" why theseanxious endeavors, especially of late years, by naturalists andphilosophers of various schools and different tendencies, to penetratewhat one of them calls "that mystery of mysteries," the origin ofspecies?

To this, in general, sufficient answer may be found in the activity ofthe human intellect, "the delirious yet divine desire to know,"stimulated as it has been by its own success in unveiling the laws andprocesses of inorganic Nature; in the fact that the principal triumphsof our age in physical science have consisted in tracing connectionswhere none were known before, in reducing heterogeneous phenomena to acommon cause or origin, in a manner quite analogous to that of thereduction of supposed independently originated species to a commonultimate origin--thus, and in various other ways, largely andlegitimately extending the domain of secondary causes. Surely thescientific mind of an age which contemplates the solar system asevolved from a common revolving fluid mass--which, through experimentalresearch, has come to regard light, heat, electricity, magnetism,chemical affinity, and mechanical power as varieties or derivative andconvertible forms of one force, instead of independent species--whichhas brought the so-called elementary kinds of matter, such as themetals, into kindred groups, and pertinently raised the question,whether the members of each group may not be mere varieties of onespecies--and which speculates steadily in the direction of the ultimateunity of matter, of a sort of prototype or simple element which may beto the ordinary species of matter what the Protozoa or what thecomponent cells of an organism are to the higher sorts of animals andplants--the mind of such an age cannot be expected to let the oldbelief about species pass unquestioned. It will raise the question, howthe diverse sorts of plants and animals came to be as they are andwhere they are and will allow that the whole inquiry transcends itspowers only when all endeavors have failed Granting the origin to besuper natural or miraculous even, will not arrest the inquiry All realorigination the philosophers will say, is supernatural, their veryquestion is, whether we have yet gone back to the origin and can affirmthat the present forms of plants and animals are the primordial, themiraculously created ones. And, even if they admit that, they willstill inquire into the order of the phenomena, into the form of themiracle You might as well expect the child to grow up content with whatit is told about the advent of its infant brother Indeed, to learn thatthe new comer is the gift of God, far from lulling inquiry, onlystimulates speculation as to how the precious gift was bestowed Thatquestioning child is father to the man--is philosopher inshort-clothes.

Since, then questions about the origin of species will be raised, andhave been raised--and since the theorizings, however different inparticulars, all proceed upon the notion that one species of plant oranimal is somehow derived from another, that the different sorts whichnow flourish are lineal (or unlineal) descendants of other and earliersorts--it now concerns us to ask, What are the grounds in Nature, theadmitted facts, which suggest hypotheses of derivation in some :shapeor other? Reasons there must be, and plausible ones, for the persistentrecurrence of theories upon this genetic basis. A study of Darwinsbook, and a general glance at the present state of the naturalsciences, enable us to gather the following as among the mostsuggestive and influential. We can only enumerate them here, withoutmuch indication of their particular bearing. There is--

1. The general fact of variability, and the general tendency of thevariety to propagate its like--the patent facts that all species varymore or less; that domesticated plants and animals, being in conditionsfavorable to the production and preservation of varieties, are apt tovary widely; and that, by interbreeding, any variety may be fixed intoa race, that is, into a variety which comes true from seed. Many suchraces, it is allowed, differ from each other in structure andappearance as widely as do many admitted species; and it is practicallyvery difficult, even impossible, to draw a clear line between races andspecies. Witness the human races, for instance. Wild species alsovary, perhaps about as widely as those of domestication, though indifferent ways. Some of them apparently vary little, others moderately,others immoderately, to the great bewilderment of systematic botanistsand zoologists, and increasing disagreement as to whether various formsshall be held to be original species or strong varieties. Moreover, thedegree to which the descendants of the same stock, varying in differentdirections, may at length diverge, is unknown. All we know is, thatvarieties are themselves variable, and that very diverse forms havebeen educed from one stock.

2. Species of the same genus are not distinguished from each other byequal amounts of difference. There is diversity in this respectanalogous to that of the varieties of a polymorphous species, some ofthem slight, others extreme. And in large genera the unequalresemblance shows itself in the clustering of the species aroundseveral types or central species, like satellites around theirrespective planets. Obviously suggestive this of the hypothesis thatthey were satellites, not thrown off by revolution, like the moons ofJupiter, Saturn, and our own solitary moon, but gradually andpeacefully detached by divergent variation. That such closely-relatedspecies may be only varieties of higher grade, earlier origin, or morefavored evolution, is not a very violent supposition. Anyhow, it was asupposition sure to be made.

3. The actual geographical distribution of species upon the earthssurface tends to suggest the same notion. For, as a general thing, allor most of the species of a peculiar genus or other type are grouped inthe same country, or occupy continuous, proximate, or accessible areas.So well does this rule hold, so general is the implication that kindredspecies are or were associated geographically, that most trustworthynaturalists, quite free from hypotheses of transmutation, areconstantly inferring former geographical continuity between parts ofthe world now widely disjoined, in order to account thereby for certaingeneric similarities among their inhabitants; just as philologistsinfer former connection of races, and a parent language, to account forgeneric similarities among existing languages. Yet no scientificexplanation has been offered to account for the geographicalassociation of kindred species, except the hypothesis of a commonorigin.

4. Here the fact of the antiquity of creation, and in particular of thepresent kinds of the earths inhabitants, or of a large part of them,comes in to rebut the objection that there has not been time enough forany marked diversification of living things through divergentvariation--not time enough for varieties to have diverged into what wecall species.

So long as the existing species of plants and animals were thought tohave originated a few thousand years ago, and without predecessors,there was no room for a theory of derivation of one sort from another,nor time enough even to account for the establishment of the raceswhich are generally believed to have diverged from a common stock. Notso much that five or six thousand years was a short allowance for this;but because some of our familiar domesticated varieties of grain, offowls, and of other animals, were pictured and mummified by the oldEgyptians more than half that number of years ago, if not earlier.Indeed, perhaps the strongest argument for the original plurality ofhuman species was drawn from the identification of some of the presentraces of men upon these early historical monuments and records.

But this very extension of the current chronology, if we may rely uponthe archaeologists, removes the difficulty by opening up a longervista. So does the discovery in Europe of remains and implements ofprehistoric races of men, to whom the use of metals was unknown--men ofthe stone age, as the Scandinavian archaeologists designate them. Andnow, "axes and knives of flint, evidently wrought by human skill, arefound in beds of the drift at Amiens (also in other places, both inFrance and England), associated with the bones of extinct species ofanimals." These implements, indeed, were noticed twenty years ago; at aplace in Suffolk they have been exhumed from time to time for more thana century; but the full confirmation, the recognition of the age of thedeposit in which the implements occur, their abundance, and theappreciation of their bearings upon most interesting questions, belongto the present time. To complete the connection of these primitivepeople with the fossil ages, the French geologists, we are told, havenow "found these axes in Picardy associated with remains of Elephasprimigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Equus fossilis, and an extinctspecies of Bos."[III-2] In plain language, these workers in flint livedin the time of the mammoth, of a rhinoceros now extinct, and along withhorses and cattle unlike any now existing--specifically different, asnaturalists say, from those with which man is now associated. Theirconnection with existing human races may perhaps be traced through theintervening people of the stone age, who were succeeded by the peopleof the bronze age, and these by workers in iron.[III-3] Now, variousevidence carries back the existence of many of the present lowerspecies of animals, and probably of a larger number of plants, to thesame drift period. All agree that this was very many thousand yearsago. Agassiz tells us that the same species of polyps which are nowbuilding coral walls around the present peninsula of Florida actuallymade that peninsula, and have been building there for many thousandcenturies.

5. The overlapping of existing and extinct species, and the seeminglygradual transition of the life of the drift period into that of thepresent, may be turned to the same account. Mammoths, mastodons, andIrish elks, now extinct, must have lived down to human, if not almostto historic times. Perhaps the last dodo did not long outlive his hugeNew Zealand kindred. The aurochs, once the companion of mammoths, stillsurvives, but owes his present and precarious existence to mans care.Now, nothing that we know of forbids the hypothesis that some newspecies have been independently and supernaturally created within theperiod which other species have survived. Some may even believe thatman was created in the days of the mammoth, became extinct, and wasrecreated at a later date. But why not say the same of the aurochs,contemporary both of the old man and of the new? Still it is morenatural, if not inevitable, to infer that, if the aurochs of that oldentime were the ancestors of the aurochs of the Lithuanian forests, solikewise were the men of that age the ancestors of the present humanraces. Then, whoever concludes that these primitive makers of rudeflint axes and knives were the ancestors of the better workmen of thesucceeding stone age, and these again of the succeeding artificers inbrass and iron, will also be likely to suppose that the Equus and Bosof that time, different though they be, were the remote progenitors ofour own horses and cattle. In all candor we must at least concede thatsuch considerations suggest a genetic descent from the drift perioddown to the present, and allow time enough--if time is of any account--for variation and natural selection to work out some appreciableresults in the way of divergence into races, or even into so-calledspecies. Whatever might have been thought, when geological time wassupposed to be separated from the present era by a clear line, it isnow certain that a gradual replacement of old forms by new ones isstrongly suggestive of some mode of origination which may still beoperative. When species, like individuals, were found to die out one byone, and apparently to come in one by one, a theory for what Owensonorously calls "the continuous operation of the ordained becoming ofliving things" could not be far off.

That all such theories should take the form of a derivation of the newfrom the old seems to be inevitable, perhaps from our inability toconceive of any other line of secondary causes in this connection. Owenhimself is apparently in travail with some transmutation theory of hisown conceiving, which may yet see the light, although Darwins camefirst to the birth. Different as the two theories will probably be,they cannot fail to exhibit that fundamental resemblance in thisrespect which betokens a community of origin, a common foundation onthe general facts and the obvious suggestions of modern science.Indeed--to turn the point of a pungent simile directed againstDarwin--the difference between the Darwinian and the Owenian hypothesesmay, after all, be only that between homoeopathic and heroic doses ofthe same drug.

If theories of derivation could only stop here, content with explainingthe diversification and succession of species between the teritiaryperiod and the present time, through natural agencies or secondarycauses still in operation, we fancy they would not be generally orviolently objected to by the savants of the present day. But it ishard, if not impossible, to find a stopping-place. Some of the facts oraccepted conclusions already referred to, and several others, of a moregeneral character, which must be taken into the account, impel thetheory onward with accumulated force. Vires (not to say virus) acquiriteundo. The theory hitches on wonderfully well to Lyells uniformitariantheory in geology--that the thing that has been is the thing that isand shall be--that the natural operations now going on will account forall geological changes in a quiet and easy way, only give them timeenough, so connecting the present and the proximate with the farthestpast by almost imperceptible gradations--a view which finds large andincreasing, if not general, acceptance in physical geology, and ofwhich Darwins theory is the natural complement.

So the Darwinian theory, once getting a foothold, marches; boldly on,follows the supposed near ancestors of our present species farther andyet farther back into the dim past, and ends with an analogicalinference which "makes the whole world kin." As we said at thebeginning, this upshot discomposes us. Several features of the theoryhave an uncanny look. They may prove to be innocent: but their firstaspect is suspicious, and high authorities pronounce the whole thing tobe positively mischievous. In this dilemma we are going to take advice.Following the bent of our prejudices, and hoping to fortify these bynew and strong arguments, we are going now to read the principalreviews which undertake to demolish the theory--with what result ourreaders shall be duly informed.

II

"I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study anddispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which mostnaturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained, namely, thateach species has been independently created, is erroneous. I am fullyconvinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging towhat are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some otherand generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledgedvarieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main,but not exclusive, means of modification."

This is the kernel of the new theory, the Darwinian creed, as recitedat the close of the introduction to the remarkable book underconsideration. The questions, "What will he do with it?" and "How farwill he carry it?" the author answers at the close of the volume:

"I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embracesall the members of the same class." Furthermore, "I believe that allanimals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, andplants from an equal or lesser number."

Seeing that analogy as strongly suggests a further step in the samedirection, while he protests that "analogy may be a deceitful guide,"yet he follows its inexorable leading to the inference that--

"Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this ear havedescended from some one primordial form, into which life was firstbreathed."[III-4]

In the first extract we have the thin end of the wedge driven a littleway; in the last, the wedge driven home.

We have already sketched some of the reasons suggestive of such atheory of derivation of species, reasons which gave it plausibility,and even no small probability, as applied to our actual world and tochanges occurring since the latest tertiary period. We are well pleasedat this moment to find that the conclusions we were arriving at in thisrespect are sustained by the very high authority and impartial judgmentof Pictet, the Swiss paleontologist. In his review of Darwinsbook[III-5] -- the fairest and most admirable opposing one that hasappeared--he freely accepts that ensemble of natural operations whichDarwin impersonates under the now familiar name of Natural Selection,allows that the exposition throughout the first chapters seems "a lafois prudent et fort," and is disposed to accept the whole argument inits foundations, that is, so far as it relates to what is now going on,or has taken place in the present geological period--which period hecarries back through the diluvial epoch to the borders of thetertiary.[III-6] Pictet accordingly admits that the theory will verywell account for the origination by divergence of nearly-relatedspecies, whether within the present period or in remoter geologicaltimes; a very natural view for him to take, since he appears to havereached and published, several years ago, the pregnant conclusion thatthere most probably was some material connection between theclosely-related species of two successive faunas, and that the numerousclose species, whose limits are so difficult to determine, were not allcreated distinct and independent. But while thus accepting, or readyto accept, the basis of Darwins theory, and all its legitimate directinferences, he rejects the ultimate conclusions, brings some weightyarguments to bear against them, and is evidently convinced that he candraw a clear line between the sound inferences, which he favors, andthe unsound or unwarranted theoretical deductions, which he rejects. Wehope he can.

This raises the question, Why does Darwin press his theory to theseextreme conclusions? Why do all hypotheses of derivation converge soinevitably to one ultimate point? Having already considered some of thereasons which suggest or support the theory at its outset--which maycarry it as far as such sound and experienced naturalists as Pictetallow that it may be true--perhaps as far as Darwin himself unfolds itin the introductory proposition cited at the beginning of thisarticle--we may now inquire after the motives which impel the theoristso much farther. Here proofs, in the proper sense of the word, are notto be had. We are beyond the region of demonstration, and have onlyprobabilities to consider. What are these probabilities? What work willthis hypothesis do to establish a claim to be adopted in itscompleteness? Why should a theory which may plausibly enough accountfor the diversification of the species of each special type or genus beexpanded into a general system for the origination or successivediversification of all species, and all special types or forms, fromfour or five remote primordial forms, or perhaps from one? We acceptthe theory of gravitation because it explains all the facts we know,and bears all the tests that we can put it to. We incline to accept thenebular hypothesis, for similar reasons; not because it is proved--thusfar it is incapable of proof--but because it is a natural theoreticaldeduction from accepted physical laws, is thoroughly congruous with thefacts, and because its assumption serves to connect and harmonize theseinto one probable and consistent whole. Can the derivative hypothesisbe maintained and carried out into a system on similar grounds? If so,however unproved, it would appear to be a tenable hypothesis, which isall that its author ought now to claim. Such hypotheses as, from theconditions of the case, can neither be proved nor disproved by directevidence or experiment, are to be tested only indirectly, and thereforeimperfectly, by trying their power to harmonize the known facts, and toaccount for what is otherwise unaccountable. So the question comes tothis: What will an hypothesis of the derivation of species explainwhich the opposing view leaves unexplained?

Questions these which ought to be entertained before we take up thearguments which have been advanced against this theory. We can barelyglance at some of the considerations which Darwin adduces, or will besure to adduce in the future and fuller exposition which is promised.To display them in such wise as to indoctrinate the unscientific readerwould require a volume. Merely to refer to them in the most generalterms would suffice for those familiar with scientific matters, butwould scarcely enlighten those who are not. Wherefore let these trustthe impartial Pictet, who freely admits that, "in the absence ofsufficient direct proofs to justify the possibility of his hypothesis,Mr. Darwin relies upon indirect proofs, the bearing of which is realand incontestable;" who concedes that "his theory accords very wellwith the great facts of comparative anatomy and zoology--comes inadmirably to explain unity of composition of organisms, also to explainrudimentary and representative organs, and the natural series of generaand species--equally corresponds with many paleontological data--agreeswell with the specific resemblances which exist between two successivefaunas, with the parallelism which is sometimes observed between theseries of paleontological succession and of embryonal development,"etc.; and finally, although he does not accept the theory in theseresults, he allows that "it appears to offer the best means ofexplaining the manner in which organized beings were produced in epochsanterior to our own."

What more than this could be said for such an hypothesis? Here,probably, is its charm, and its strong hold upon the speculative mind.Unproven though it be, and cumbered prima facie with cumulativeimprobabilities as it proceeds, yet it singularly accords with greatclasses of facts otherwise insulated and enigmatic, and explains manythings which are thus far utterly inexplicable upon any otherscientific assumption.

We have said that Darwins hypothesis is the natural complement toLyells uniformitarian theory in physical geology. It is for the organicworld what that is for the inorganic; and the accepters of the latterstand in a position from which to regard the former in the mostfavorable light. Wherefore the rumor that the cautious Lyell himselfhas adopted the Darwinian hypothesis need not surprise us. The twoviews are made for each other, and, like the two counterpart picturesfor the stereoscope, when brought together, combine into one apparentlysolid whole.

If we allow, with Pictet, that Darwins theory will very well serve forall that concerns the present epoch of the worlds history--an epoch inwhich this renowned paleontologist includes the diluvial or quaternaryperiod--then Darwins first and foremost need in his onward course is apracticable road from this into and through the tertiary period, theintervening region between the comparatively near and the far remotepast. Here Lyells doctrine paves the way, by showing that in thephysical geology there is no general or absolute break between the two,probably no greater between the latest tertiary and the quaternaryperiod than between the latter and the present time. So far, theLyellian view is, we suppose, generally concurred in. It is largelyadmitted that numerous tertiary species have continued down into thequaternary, and many of them to the present time. A goodly percentageof the earlier and nearly half of the later tertiary mollusca,according to Des Hayes, Lye!!, and, if we mistake not, Bronn, stilllive. This identification, however, is now questioned by a naturalistof the very highest authority. But, in its bearings on the new theory,the point here turns not upon absolute identity so much as upon closeresemblance. For those who, with Agassiz, doubt the specific identityin any of these cases, and those who say, with Pictet, that "the latertertiary deposits contain in general the debris of species very nearlyrelated to those which still exist, belonging to the same genera, butspecifically different," may also agree with Pictet, that thenearly-related species of successive faunas must or may have had "amaterial connection." But the only material connection that we have anidea of in such a case is a genealogical one. And the supposition of agenealogical connection is surely not unnatural in such cases--isdemonstrably the natural one as respects all those tertiary specieswhich experienced naturalists have pronounced to be identical withexisting ones, but which others now deem distinct For to identify thetwo is the same thing as to conclude the one to be the ancestor of theother No doubt there are differences between the tertiary and thepresent individuals, differences equally noticed by both classes ofnaturalists, but differently estimated By the one these are deemedquite compatible, by the other incompatible, with community of originBut who can tell us what amount of difference is compatible withcommunity of origin? This is the very question at issue, and one to besettled by observation alone Who would have thought that the peach andthe nectarine came from one stock? But, this being proved is it nowvery improbable that both were derived from the almond, or from somecommon amygdaline progenitor? Who would have thought that the cabbage,cauliflower, broccoli kale, and kohlrabi are derivatives of onespecies, and rape or colza, turnip, and probably ruta-baga, of anotherspecies? And who that is convinced of this can long undoubtingly holdthe original distinctness of turnips from cabbages as an article offaith? On scientific grounds may not a primordial cabbage or rape beassumed as the ancestor of all the cabbage races, on much the sameground that we assume a common ancestry for the diversified humanraces? If all Our breeds of cattle came from one stock why not thisstock from the auroch, which has had all the time between the diluvialand the historic periods in which to set off a variation perhaps nogreater than the difference between some sorts of domestic cattle?

That considerable differences are often discernible between tertiaryindividuals and their supposed descendants of the present day affordsno argument against Darwins theory, as has been rashly thought, but isdecidedly in its favor. If the identification were so perfect that nomore differences were observable between the tertiary and the recentshells than between various individuals of either, then Darwinsopponents, who argue the immutability of species from the ibises andcats preserved by the ancient Egyptians being just like those of thepresent day, could triumphantly add a few hundred thousand years moreto the length of the experiment and to the force of their argument.

As the facts stand, it appears that, while some tertiary forms areessentially undistinguishable from existing ones, others are the samewith a difference, which is judged not to be specific or aboriginal;and yet others show somewhat greater differences, such as arescientifically expressed by calling them marked varieties, or elsedoubtful species; while others, differing a little more, areconfidently termed distinct, but nearly-related species. Now, is notall this a question of degree, of mere gradation of difference? And isit at all likely that these several gradations came to be establishedin two totally different ways--some of them (though naturalists cantagree which) through natural variation, or other secondary cause, andsome by original creation, without secondary cause? We have seen thatthe judicious Pictet answers such questions as Darwin would have himdo, in affirming that, in all probability, the nearly-related speciesof two successive faunas were materially connected, and thatcontemporaneous species, similarly resembling each other, were not allcreated so, but have become so. This is equivalent to saying thatspecies (using the term as all naturalists do, and must continue toemploy the word) have only a relative, not an absolute fixity; thatdifferences fully equivalent to what are held to be specific may arisein the course of time, so that one species may at length be naturallyreplaced by another species a good deal like it, or may be diversifiedinto two, three, or more species, or forms as different as species.This concedes all that Darwin has a right to ask, all that he candirectly infer from evidence. We must add that it affords a locusstandi, more or less tenable, for inferring more.

Here another geological consideration comes in to help on thisinference. The species of the later tertiary period for the most partnot only resembled those of our days--many of them so closely as tosuggest an absolute continuity--but also occupied in general the sameregions that their relatives occupy now. The same may be said, thoughless specially, of the earlier tertiary and of the later secondary; butthere is less and less localization of forms as we recede, yet somelocalization even in palaeozoic times. While in the secondary periodone is struck with the similarity of forms and the identity of many ofthe species which flourished apparently at the same time in all or inthe most widely-separated parts of the world, in the tertiary epoch, onthe contrary, along with the increasing specialization of climates andtheir approximation to the present state, we find abundant evidence ofincreasing localization of orders, genera and species, and thislocalization strikingly accords with the present geographicaldistribution of the same groups of species Where the imputedforefathers lived their relatives and supposed descendants now flourishAll the actual classes of the animal and vegetable kingdoms wererepresented in the tertiary faunas and floras and in nearly the sameproportions and the same diversities as at present The faunas of whatis now Europe, Asia America and Australia, differed from each othermuch as they now differ: in fact--according to Adolphe Brongniart,whose statements we here condense[III-7]--the inhabitants of thesedifferent regions appear for the most part to have acquired, before theclose of the tertiary period, the characters which essentiallydistinguish their existing faunas. The Eastern Continent had then, asnow, its great pachyderms, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus; SouthAmerica, its armadillos, sloths, and anteaters; Australia, a crowd ofmarsupials; and the very strange birds of New Zealand had predecessorsof similar strangeness.

Everywhere the same geographical distribution as now, with a differencein the particular area, as respects the northern portion of thecontinents, answering to a warmer climate then than ours, such asallowed species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and elephant, to rangeeven to the regions now inhabited by the reindeer and the musk-ox, andwith the serious disturbing intervention of the glacial period within acomparatively recent time. Let it be noted also that those tertiaryspecies which have continued with little change down to our days arethe marine animals of the lower grades, especially mollusca. Their loworganization, moderate sensibility, and the simple conditions of anexistence in a medium like the ocean, not subject to great variationand incapable of sudden change, may well account for their continuance;while, on the other hand, the more intense, however gradual, climaticvicissitudes on land, which have driven all tropical and subtropicalforms out of the higher latitudes and assigned to them their actuallimits, would be almost sure to extinguish such huge and unwieldyanimals as mastodons, mammoths, and the like, whose power of enduringaltered circumstances must have been small.

This general replacement of the tertiary species of a country by othersso much like them is a noteworthy fact. The hypothesis of theindependent creation of all species, irrespective of their antecedents,leaves this fact just as mysterious as is creation itself; that ofderivation undertakes to account for it. Whether it satisfactorily doesso or not, it must be allowed that the facts well accord with thathypothesis. The same may be said of another conclusion, namely, thatthe geological succession of animals and plants appears to correspondin a general way with their relative standing or rank in a naturalsystem of classification. It seems clear that, though no one of thegrand types of the animal kingdom can be traced back farther than therest, yet the lower classes long preceded the higher; that there hasbeen on the whole a steady progression within each class and order; andthat the highest plants and animals have appeared only in relativelymodern times. It is only, however, in a broad sense that thisgeneralization is now thought to hold good. It encounters many apparentexceptions, and sundry real ones. So far as the rule holds, all is asit should be upon an hypothesis of derivation.

The rule has its exceptions. But, curiously enough, the most strikingclass of exceptions, if such they be, seems to us even more favorableto the doctrine of derivation than is the general rule of a pure andsimple ascending gradation. We refer to what Agassiz calls propheticand synthetic types; for which the former name may suffice, as thedifference between the two is evanescent.

"It has been noticed," writes our great zoologist, "that certain types,which are frequently prominent among the representatives of past ages,combine in their structure peculiarities which at later periods areonly observed separately in different, distinct types. Sauroid fishesbefore reptiles, Pterodactyles before birds, Ichthyosauri beforedolphins, etc. There are entire families, of nearly every class ofanimals, which in the state of their perfect development exemplify suchprophetic relations.

The sauroid fishes of the past geological ages are an example of thiskind These fishes which preceded the appearance of reptiles present acombination of ichthyic and reptilian characters not to be found in thetrue members of this class, which form its bulk at present. ThePterodactyles, which preceded the class of birds, and the Ichthyosauri,which preceded the Cetacea, are other examples of such prophetictypes."--(Agassiz, "Contributions, Essay on Classification," p. 117.)

Now, these reptile-like fishes, of which gar-pikes are the livingrepresentatives, though of earlier appearance, are admittedly of higherrank than common fishes. They dominated until reptiles appeared, whenthey mostly gave place to (or, as the derivationists will insist, wereresolved by divergent variation and natural selection into) commonfishes, destitute of reptilian characters, and saurian reptiles--theintermediate grades, which, according to a familiar piscine saying, are"neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring," being eliminated andextinguished by natural consequence of the struggle for existence whichDarwin so aptly portrays. And so, perhaps, of the other prophetictypes. Here type and antitype correspond. If these are true prophecies,we need not wonder that some who read them in Agassizs book will readtheir fulfillment in Darwins.

Note also, in this connection, that along with a wonderful persistenceof type, with change of species, genera, orders, etc., from formationto formation, no species and no higher group which has onceunequivocally died out ever afterward reappears. Why is this, but thatthe link of generation has been sundered? Why, on the hypothesis ofindependent originations, were not failing species recreated, eitheridentically or with a difference, in regions eminently adapted to theirwell-being? To take a striking case. That no part of the world nowoffers more suitable conditions for wild horses and cattle than thepampas and other plains of South America, is shown by the facility withwhich they have there run wild and enormously multiplied, sinceintroduced from the Old World not long ago. There was no wild Americanstock. Yet in the times of the mastodon and megatherium, at the dawn ofthe present period, wild-horses--certainly very much like the existinghorse--roamed over those plains in abundance. On the principle oforiginal and direct created adaptation of species to climate and otherconditions, why were they not reproduced, when, after the colderintervening era, those regions became again eminently adapted to suchanimals? Why, but because, by their complete extinction in SouthAmerica, the line of descent was there utterly broken? Upon theordinary hypothesis, there is no scientific explanation possible ofthis series of facts, and of many others like them. Upon the newhypothesis, "the succession of the same types of structure within thesame areas during the later geological periods ceases to be mysterious,and is simply explained by inheritance." Their cessation is failure ofissue.

Along with these considerations the fact (alluded to on page 98) shouldbe remembered that, as a general thing, related species of the presentage are geographically associated. The larger part of the plants, andstill more of the animals, of each separate country are peculiar to it;and, as most species now flourish over the graves of their by-gonerelatives of former ages, so they now dwell among or accessibly neartheir kindred species.

Here also comes in that general "parallelism between the order ofsuccession of animals and plants in geological times, and the gradationamong their living representatives" from low to highly organized, fromsimple and general to complex and specialized forms; also "theparallelism between the order of succession of animals in geologicaltimes and the changes their living representatives undergo during theirembryological growth," as if the world were one prolonged gestation.Modern science has much insisted on this parallelism, and to a certainextent is allowed to have made it out. All these things, which conspireto prove that the ancient and the recent forms of life "are somehowintimately connected together in one grand system," equally conspire tosuggest that the connection is one similar or analogous to generation.Surely no naturalist can be blamed for entering somewhat confidentlyupon a field of speculative inquiry which here opens so invitingly; norneed former premature endeavors and failures utterly dishearten him.

All these things, it may naturally be said, go to explain the order,not the mode, of the incoming of species. But they all do tend to bringout the generalization expressed by Mr. Wallace in the formula that"every species has come into existence coincident both in time andspace with preexisting closely-allied species." Not, however, that thisis proved even of existing species as a matter of general fact. It isobviously impossible to prove anything of the kind. But we must concedethat the known facts strongly suggest such an inference. And--sincespecies are only congeries of individuals, since every individual cameinto existence in consequence of preexisting individuals of the samesort, so leading up to the individuals with which the species began,and since the only material sequence we know of among plants andanimals is that from parent to progeny--the presumption becomesexceedingly strong that the connection of the incoming with thepreexisting species is a genealogical one.

Here, however, all depends upon the probability that Mr. Wallacesinference is really true. Certainly it is not yet generally accepted;but a strong current is setting toward its acceptance.

So long as universal cataclysms were in vogue, and all life upon theearth was thought to have been suddenly destroyed and renewed manytimes in succession, such a view could not be thought of. So theequivalent view maintained by Agassiz, and formerly, we believe, byDOrbigny, that irrespectively of general and sudden catastrophes, orany known adequate physical cause, there has been a total depopulationat the close of each geological period or formation, say forty or fiftytimes or more, followed by as many independent great acts of creation,at which alone have species been originated, and at each of which avegetable and an animal kingdom were produced entire and complete,full-fledged, as flourishing, as wide-spread, and populous, as variedand mutually adapted from the beginning as ever afterward--such a view,of course, supersedes all material connection between successivespecies, and removes even the association and geographical range ofspecies entirely out of the domain of physical causes and of naturalscience. This is the extreme opposite of Wallaces and Darwin s view,and is quite as hypothetical. The nearly universal opinion, if werightly gather it, manifestly is, that the replacement of the speciesof successive formations was not complete and simultaneous, but partialand successive; and that along the course of each epoch some speciesprobably were introduced, and some, doubtless, became extinct. If allsince the tertiary belongs to our present epoch, this is certainly trueof it: if to two or more epochs, then the hypothesis of a total changeis not true of them.

Geology makes huge demands upon time; and we regret to find that it has